This blog was created by the Purdue Beef Team as an educational forum for beef producers and Extension educators. It includes timely news, issues, and management tips that have the potential to affect the beef business and decision-making process. Opinions expressed in the news clips do not necessarily represent those of Purdue University or the beef industry.

Calving is just finished or winding down for many. Although some would say this is premature, now actually is the time to start thinking about cash flow and income the 2017 calf crop will generate. Many opportunities in the beef business exist when time is taken to explore, discuss and plan for them.

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For the past 36 years, Bob Noble, whose cattle feeding operation is located west of Riceville, has seen many changes in cattle feeding among many other areas of the beef industry. Bob, his wife Jayne and their three children, lived on the farm where Bob was raised. Nobles have fed cattle on the farmstead for the past 36 years. “My dad, Harlan, was a general farmer with different types of livestock including milk cows. The last 20 years Dad fed cattle,” Bob said.

Shade can solve a lot of problems. It can improve livestock grazing and production. Cattle without shade gain less weight and produce less milk than their cool counterparts. Fertility rates drop too. Shade also impacts productivity by changing where animals deposit manure, and how much of your pasture gets grazed.

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Dehorning, or disbudding, is necessary in raising naturally horned animals to keep them from injuring workers and themselves. Since cattle have a social hierarchy, horns are used to assert dominance, resulting in bruises and cuts in their herd-mates, and potentially serious injury or death to humans.

Melissa Morton, the former accounting and compliance director for the Oklahoma Beef Council, was charged May 10 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Oklahoma with embezzling $2.68 million from the Oklahoma Beef Council over a seven-year period.

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Cattle genetics have made big improvements since the American Angus Association released its beef value ($B) index in 2004. Often called "dollar beef," it was one of the first tools to combine expected progeny differences (EPDs) for feedyard and carcass traits with economic measures.

Working with nature, instead of trying to master it, his beef farm in Washington County’s rugged hill country is now the focal point of a thriving business that delivers locally sourced foods to dozens of New York City and Hudson Valley CSAs throughout the year.